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Studio Ghibli’s Tales from Earthsea

April 12th, 2006 (Visited 4531 times) Tags:

I somehow managed to miss the Tales from Earthsea trailer. It’s being directed by Goro Miyazaki, Hayao Miyazaki’s son. Visually and tonally, it sure comes across as a “Miyazaki film.” Lovely song, too.

One thing that struck me, though, was that once again, none of the characters are black. Sigh.

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Acid for Blood » Blog Archive » Colour in Earthsea wrote on April 12th, 2006 at 10:56 am:

[...] Via Raph Koster’s blog, I came across an essay about minority racial representation in science fiction and fantasy, specifically regarding The Legend of Earthsea series for the SciFi channel and how Hollywood had changed the race of the cast of characters. In the show, they are white. Koster notes that Goro Miyazaki’s film, Tales From Earthsea, also features an all-white cast. In the books by Ursula K. Le Guin, the heroes are black, and the baddies are white. [...]

Faith wrote on April 13th, 2006 at 1:02 am:

[...] Comments [...]

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chabuhi said on April 12th, 2006 at 9:54 am:
I am not a fan of anime, mostly because it seems such a trendy thing these days. It seems like so many people are into because they’re “supposed to be” in order to maintain their membership in the geek club, or something. But, I certainly don’t begrudge the true fans their entertainment. There are some films (”Princess Mononoke” sp?) that I enjoyed immensely despite the fact that, going in, I was fully prepared to hate them.

“Tales from Earthsea” looks gorgeous in this trailer.
Brinstar said on April 12th, 2006 at 10:06 am:
Huh? Anime isn’t “trendy” anymore. Anime was “trendy” about 10 years ago.
Trucegore said on April 12th, 2006 at 12:52 pm:
wate, i thought that one uber mage guy was black. (in the si-fi miniseries)

/ponders
Oogami said on April 13th, 2006 at 12:58 am:
I have been wondering about this “why is there no ‘race X’ in this movie/game/series/etc.” line of thought.

I have been watching plenty of animations up till now, both western and eastern (that would be mostly Japanese, plus some Korean) and it has never, occurred to me to ask: “Where are the Japanese/Chinese/Asian characters in this production?” when watching things like The Little Mermaid. And I am not bothered by it either.

Although I did ask myself: “Why are all the geishas in this show Chinese?” (Memoirs of a Geisha)
Raph said on April 13th, 2006 at 8:03 am:

Oogami, in the case of the Earthsea stuff, it’s because the original books were all set in a semi-tropical island archipelago and the author specifically portrayed the principal characters as dark-skinned (a wide array of dark colors, actually). It was the invading empire that was light-skinned. It was a bold step and regrettably, still unusual today.

To have the screen adaptations choose to change that is unfortunate, to my mind; it changes a lot about the books. If you read the linked essay, you’ll see that many have significant emotional attachment to the books and the way they portrayed race.

Trucegore, yes, they did leave one black character. However, in the original, Ged isn’t blond and blue-eyed. He’s “nut-brown.”
Damijin said on April 14th, 2006 at 2:57 am:
Perhaps the skin color was conciously changed to make the invading race appear more similar to the natives? Im not sure of the metaphors implied in Earthsea, but there are racial tensions in asia between races that don’t look so different from each other.

I’ve never read Earthsea (although I might now), but I just thought I’d throw an idea out there
Oogami said on April 16th, 2006 at 6:22 pm:
Ah, in that case, the question is very very valid.
Maybe I’ll go seek out the book too.
Raph said on April 16th, 2006 at 9:17 pm:

There are actually several books — six by now, I think. You want to start with the original trilogy:

A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1)
The Tombs of Atuan (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 2)
The Farthest Shore (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 3)

These three are later additions:

Tehanu (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 4)
Tales from Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 5)
The Other Wind (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 6)

I haven’t even read the last one yet.
Dexter said on April 18th, 2006 at 7:22 pm:
I’m just obsessed with the Hayao Miyazaki Films and I heard about Goro Miyazaki is directing a new film basedon a book called “Tales from Earthsea”. What exactly is it about?

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